Friday, June 22, 2007

I'm a pack rat...

I know that Friday Recipe Blogging (as well as pretty much all posting of substance) has been de-railed a bit from all of my galavanting around the world and then (more recently) sitting in front of the boob-tube watching hours of HGTV. My life right now is kind of taking place in bullet form, so why fight it?? I have sent out emails to try to get the Tuscan recipes we made while we were there. BUT, at the end of this post, I will include a recipe for a special sauce that we had a lot while we were there - it's a specialty of Tuscany.

So, yesterday I had a minor fender bender that was my fault - I was pulling out of a parking lot and the guy I was pulling behind hadn't moved up as much as I thought - I waved at the woman who let me in, and then promptly bumped the guy's tail end. It left a miniscule scratch on our car, but it dented the corner of this guy's fender. He gets out of his car and started yelling at me and - blogosphere - you would have been so proud of me! I just calmly told him not to yell and to pull off the road into the parking lot and we would exchange info. When we got out of our cars, he was still yelling and I told him again, very calmly, not to be rude and that I apologized and that I would take responsibility for it - it was my fault. So, he calmed down, we exchanged info. and that was that. I called my insurance company to report it and got a claim #. So I called the guy I hit to give him the info and he was SO apologetic! He kept saying how sorry he was that he yelled at me and he thanked me profusely for calling to give him the updated info and for being so on top of things. He also apologized for neglecting to ask me if I was okay or if there was any damage to my car, etc. Hell, you'd think he was the one who hit me!

In other news, I have been packing away. I've been going through all my office materials and separating books and files into "home office" and "school office" - I just have so much shit. Also, I decided to take the 25 pounds of course pack copies that I've had for teaching the last 5 years and go up to the Dutchman's office and scan them into PDFs. These are pieces that show up on my syllabi regularly (Havelok the Dane! The Life of St. Margaret!) and now that I have PDFs, I can just attach them to Blackboard or WebCT whenever I want and I don't have to worry about copyright issues and the expense of a course pack. Dee-lightful!

- 5 oz. of porcini mushrooms, sliced- 1 large onion- 1 medium carrot- 8 oz. wild boar ham (you might be able to get this at a specialty store, but if not you can substitute prosciutto and pancetta)- 4 oz. salted domestic pork (from the shoulder!)- half cup of olive oil- quarter cup butter- salt and pepper to taste- 1.5 cups good red wine - shiraz preferred- 1 shot glass of good grappa

1. Mince the onion, carrot, and pork meat in the food processor2. Add oil and butter to a sauce pan and fry the mushrooms and the minced ingredients (with salt and pepper)well.3. Add the red wine and grappa and stew the mixture on low with the lid on for about 30 minutes (check every ten minutes and stir it).4. The last 5 minutes, heat it up to high and let the liquid reduce to get a thick, meaty sauce.5. Serve over pappardelle with shaved parmesan cheese.

3 comments:

Condolences on the fender bender. I had one once, and even though it was just a tiny bump, it sorta freaked me out. It really brings home that you are in charge of a huge chunk of metal that can hurt things.

Hee, hee - Morgan if you find some, you'll have to tell me how the recipe turns out! It was amazing when we had it there - but it was also served with awesome Italian wine by a smoulderingly good-looking Italian man.

"It was lying on a butcher's block, not crying, although there was snow, but warm and chuckling under a comforter of stray cats. They were all purring together, and the sound was heavy with knowledge. I stood by the strange cradle for a long time, pondering while the snow fell and the cats purred prophecy."